Slowing Down in Kotor, Montenegro

Our next stop after Dubrovnik was the town of Kotor in the relatively new nation of Montenegro. Kotor is the main town on the Bay of Kotor, a giant inlet on the Adriatic Sea. After moving so quickly through Croatia with Della’s family, we decided to slow down in Kotor and ended up staying six nights!

Where We Stayed

Apartments Samardzic – Part of the reason why we decided to stay in Kotor for so long was because we really enjoyed our space in this apartment. We had a nice queen-sized bed, a good bathroom, a kitchenette, a big living room, and our favorite feature: a view over the bay. We spent most of our afternoons just relaxing the in the living room, looking out over the bay and catching up on things. The hosts live right next door, and were always very kind whenever we had a question.

Enjoying the terrace

The view from our terrace

Our own comfortable living room!

What We Did

Honestly, not too much. Even though we stayed in Kotor for many days, a lot of our time was spent catchng up on the blog and reading books. We did try to do a little sightseeing most of the days. So, we did do these activities:

Explore Old Town – The Old Town of Kotor is known for being small but also like a maze. We spent a few different days trying to get lost in its different alleyways. We never got completely lost, but we did find a lot of picturesque little corners. We also found a lot of cute cats!

The main square and clock tower

Jelfie in front of the old Serbian Orthodox church

One of the many narrow streets

A kitten prepares to pounce (the pigeon got away)

Two cats cuddling

Climb the City Walls – Kotor has a very impressive defense system. Not only does it have thick walls to protect from attacks from the sea, it also has a series of walls running up the hill behind the Old Town that protect from attacks by land. Today, you can pay a small fee to hike up the old walls all the way to a fort at the very top. We took advantage of this one evening, and had great views over the bay as the sun set.

You can see the walls going up the hill in the background. We wanted to climb to the top!

Looking down at Old Town Kotor

We made it!

Taking a breather to read a book

Sunset colors as we head down

The view from behind the Orthodox Church that is halfway down

Day Trip to Perast – On one of the days in town, we also decided to take a day trip to the another interesting town near the mouth of the bay called Perast. There wasn’t too much going on there, but we enjoyed a lazy afternoon admiring its Venetian architecture and exploring its sights.

The bell tower in Perast

The distinctive islands near Perast. One is natural and has a monestary, the other is man-made.

Got Eric’s Hair Cut – It hadn’t been cut since before we left on our trip. As fun as it would have been to see him in a ponytail, he felt it was time. We asked around and heard that a place in Old Town would do it for a reasonable price. One evening we headed over there, and he got the exact cut he wanted in less than ten minutes!

Where We Ate

Our Apartment – For as much as we enjoyed Kotor, its one downside was a lack of cheap, non-touristy restaurants. So, for every night except one, we cooked dinner in our apartment! We found a nice grocery store (in the same fancy shopping mall as the Zumba classes), so we were able to vary the menu each night. We were also able to get a local beer or wine each night for pretty cheap.

Pizzeria Sara – The one exception to our cooking at home was the night we climbed the City Walls – all of those stairs made us pretty hungry! So instead of figuring out what to cook, we decided to eat some pizza. We both tried to get pizzas with a little bit of local flair – Della had a topping of local ham, and Eric had some prosciutto.

Our table had a nice view on the square in front of the cathedral

Final Thoughts

We may not have done as much sightseeing during our week in Kotor as we had done other weeks, but we really enjoyed the chance to relax and recuperate. The few activities we did do were fun, and Kotor is definitely high on our list of places we have enjoyed visiting!

Post navigation

2 thoughts on “Slowing Down in Kotor, Montenegro”

[…] of the month! We had been looking forward to our visit to Kotor for a long time. We really enjoyed slowing down in Kotor at the end of last month and the beginning of this month. One of the best days we had there was […]

[…] Kotor has a very impressive defense system. Not only does it have thick walls to protect from attacks from the sea, it also has a series of walls running up the hill behind the Old Town that protect from attacks by land. Today, you can pay a small fee to hike up the old walls all the way to a fort at the very top. We took advantage of this one evening, and had great views over the bay as the sun set. […]